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The 10 Best Films of the Decade
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10. The Dark Knight
Yes, it’s at #10. Deal with it. It’s as much a sequel to Batman Begins as Wicked is to The Wizard of Oz. Batman Begins was about Batman; The Dark Knight is about the Joker, plain and simple. We are given a beautifully crafted labyrinth of good and evil to snake through, and by the end of it we’re rooting for him more than the hero. And there isn’t much to say about Heath Ledger’s high-tension, Tyler-Durden-meets-Bugs-Bunny performance that hasn’t been said already. He knocked it out of the park, and his time onscreen is the highlight of an imperfect but still mesmerizing piece of work. It’s worth it alone to see an 18-wheeler do a cartwheel without CGI. The Dark Knight sets the bar for action flicks as high as Ledger sets it for villains.
9. Good Night, and Good Luck
David Strathairn has to be one of the greatest living actors. He’s like Daniel Craig, or Paul Giamatti: he can speak without saying a word. He can hold an expression and you can see every gear turn his character’s mind. Good Night, and Good Luck lets him use that reserved gravity to great effect. As Edward R. Murrow, he plays a man trying to stand up for what’s right who knows what happens if he stands too high, but doesn’t care. It’s a film for its time, and its time shows no signs of ending. This is what the news should be.
8. Redbelt
David Mamet had to make one appearance on this list, and Redbelt does him justice. The traits are all there in spades: the wordy but terse poetry of his dialogue, the characters caught in a whirlwind of humanity at its shadiest, the sucker punch twists and turns. It’s not the story of a con game that could never happen; it’s the story of a con game that probably already has.
7. Moon
Proof that science fiction and spectacle aren’t joined at the hip. The premise is simple – worker drone alone on the moon literally finds himself – but where Moon goes with it few have gone before. It doesn’t need explosions, CGI dogfights, or blue cat people. All it did was turn the spotlight inward and let a dark mystery unfold around a helpless victim, as far from home as he can be. Sam Rockwell shows again how underrated a talent he is, playing to perfection a lonely man slowly losing his grip as he peeks behind a curtain he shouldn’t have noticed in the first place.
6. In The Loop
Dr. Strangelove would be proud. In The Loop is quicker and smarter than almost any movie I’ve seen, and it’s a high-wire kind of comedy. Blink and you miss the funny. It wouldn’t be the success it is without Peter Capaldi, whose steely-eyed, quick-witted, acid-tongued governmental hit man makes me giggle with delight at his rapid-fire profanity. It’s the kind of movie that makes you want to end every conversation with “Fuckity-bye.”
5. Layer Cake
If Snatch is the flash-in-the-pan, Layer Cake is the slow burn. The two do extraordinarily well with the crime genre, but Layer Cake comes in first for its style, not stylization. It’s the rebirth of cool, but believably so, for within its concise illustration of a drug dealer’s day-to-day, there’s something deftly humble at its core. Street smarts outweigh confidence, and arrogance is punished. Daniel Craig is as cool in this as he is as 007, showing how Bond would fare forced to switch sides of the law.
4. Brick
This one will have its detractors. It’s too far-fetched, it’s corny, it’s a great in theory but not in practice; I’ve heard a lot of complaints. But I still love it. It’s the film noir textbook brought to a San Clemente suburb, with its pastiche of noir archetypes setting the stage for a pitch perfect homage to the genre. There’s the detective, the femme fatale, the stool pigeon, the crime lord; they’re all there, but they’re all different. Suddenly they’re all real. A spoof would’ve been easier, but Brick plays it straight to great success.
3. Wall-E
The best Pixar film, without question. Wall-E proves the silent film is still a powerful genre; swap Wall-E for Chaplin or Keaton and they’d be right at home, but even they wouldn’t pack the same punch. What Wall-E accomplishes is incredible: humanity for the machine. It’s a spectacular story; subtle in its execution but profound in its effect. I’m reeling every time I see it for what it pulled off with a character who barely speaks. This is filmmaking, without using an inch of film.
2. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind
Rockwell again. The man has skills. He doesn’t have to fight the good fight here as he did in Moon; here, he’s pure sleaze. He’s losing his mind again, but this time to unholy television. Confessions of a Dangerous Mind is actually a great companion piece to Good Night, and Good Luck; two sides of the same coin. One’s about honor in an arena that needs it, the other’s about honor in a world that has no use for it. Rockwell plays Chuck Barris, part time game show host, part time CIA operative, and he’s free to let the skeevy charm and insecurity fly. The film is beautifully shot, with perfect hues and vibrant colors dotting a motif of deceptive nostalgia, and the story – written by the impeccable Charlie Kaufman – just rocks: a man’s downward spiral in two worlds where that’s the only direction.
1. In Bruges
It’s always going to hold a place in my heart. It is a story of existentialism, guilt, and responsibility, all in the heart of fucking Bruges. I was no big fan of Colin Farrell until I saw this; he’s fantastic. He’s a hit man with one botched job haunting him, hiding out with his partner in – of all places – Belgium. It sounds like the bones to a big dumb action movie, but it’s not. It’s something profound; something that sticks with you for the chances it takes. The writing is spectacular, the direction is top-of-the-line, and Farrell, Brendan Gleeson, and Ralph Fiennes put in some of their best work. It’s a film with as many shootouts and headshots as angst-ridden philosophy and pitch black comedy; it’s a complete hodgepodge, but it’s brilliant, with no tedious lulls between gunshots and no blustering actions pieces between its darker, modern-man-in-crisis interludes. To paraphrase a critic’s review of Burn After Reading, it’s the kind of comedy where someone can get their head blown off. Everything just fits. It’s absolute clockwork, and I’ll never get tired of watching it. It’s the best movie of the past ten years.
Honorable mentions:
The Fall
Sleuth
The Brothers Bloom
Hot Fuzz
The Triplets of Belleville
The Lookout
Unsung Joe – extra
Image by angus mcdiarmid
As a supplement to the Unsung Joe piece on Franklin Parker, a bit-part actor who had tiny roles as newspaper reporters in 30 or so films in the 30s and 40s, here’s a front-page news story from 1938 that he featured in, which represents the peak of his fame.
The movie star of the headline is Lyle Talbot, a B-movie actor who you probably haven’t heard of (I certainly hadn’t). He was in "Plan 9 From Outer Space" (1959), though, so he probably counts as one of Hollywood’s immortals.
Franklin and Lyle, both Nebraska boys, had met when Lyle was the leading man in the stock theatre company in Lincoln, Nebraska. Their friendship survived the transition to Hollywood and the fact that Lyle got plenty of decent work while Franklin made do with walk-ons.
Here’s what appeared under that headline in the October 25, 1938, edition of the Centralia Daily Chronicle:
"BEVERLY HILLS, Calif — Trapped by fire on the second floor of his pretentious home here early today, Lyle Talbot, handsome leading man of the films, and his house guest, Franklin Parker, also an actor, leaped to safety early today.
They were taken to the Beverly Hills receiving hospital suffering painful burns. Their condition was declared by attendants to be serious."
Did ‘pretentious’ have a different meaning in 1938? If not, that would seem to be a needlessly harsh thing to say about the house of a guy who’s lying in hospital with serious burns. The article continued:
"Talbot’s hair was burned from his scalp and Parker’s back was severely burned. The house was nearly demolished by the flames after the pair made their 20-foot leap … Police theorized the fire may have been started by a burning cigarette, left in the living room. Talbot had entertained last night, authorities said they had learned, but all of the guests except Parker had left the home when the fire broke out."
The following day’s papers carried another AP wire story about Parker and Talbot, to which the Galveston Daily News gave the headline: "Burns Inflicted Rescuing Friend From Fire May End Talbot’s Screen Career". The story read:
"The red badge of courage belonged tonight to Screen Actor Lyle Talbot, hero of a fire that destroyed his ,000 home, but the penalty of his heroism probably is a blighted screen career.
Talbot’s hands, neck, arms and head were burned so severely he may never appear again before the cameras. He saved the life of his house guest, Franklin D Parker, also an actor, by dragging him from a fiery, smoke-filled bedroom to a second-storey ledge and safety.
Witnesses saw Talbot, trapped on the second floor by flames that started at ground level, trying desperately to drag Parker’s unconscious form out on a porch roof from a bedroom. Talbot, choking with smoke, his pajamas aflame, finally got Parker to safety and then leaped 20 feet to the ground to assist firemen who had been summoned by neighbors.
The condition of both men was critical, said physicians at Cedars of Lebanon Hospital."
The story went on to say that Talbot’s wife was staying with a friend whose husband was out of town (so perhaps the party at Talbot’s house had been a sort of gals-free stag-do sort of affair) and then recounted Talbot’s career to date, noting that his last role was in "I Stand Accused" (1938), in which he played a gangster "and met the usual screen death at the hands of the law."
Of Franklin, it said only: "Parker played on the New York stage several years ago. He has had several bit roles and a few featured parts since coming to Hollywood."
Franklin Parker: even when he makes the front page, it’s in a bit part.
It seems that the pair’s burns were less serious than they appeared to be, because they both continued to work as steadily as they had ever done, and photographs of Lyle Talbot in later years show him with a full head of hair and no visible scars.
Franklin died of a heart attack in 1962, at the age of 60, and Lyle lived until he was 92, in 1996, when he died of ‘natural causes’.
SHANGHAI 2020 – Swat Chicks Party
Image by Jakob Montrasio
Meiwenti is back! This time we are cooking an action film, Shanghai 2020! We are honoured to invite you to our fundraising party; all 50 kuai from the ticket will go to the production of the movie. Meet the coolest filmmakers in town, dance with the film’s hot SWAT Chicks and be part of Shanghai’s indie film movement.
We’re having Bananas Soundsytem’s mind-blowing DJs, Kamikaze and elnomo, taking turns to make you jam till late. Latitude Bistro & Longitude Lounge will have Happy Hour (6pm to 8pm, buy 1 get 1 free), Martini Night (9pm to midnight, buy 1 get 1 free), and 10% discount on food for reservations made before 5 pm.
Thursday, February 26, 6pm till late
1 Yueyang Lu, near Dongping Lu (Hengshan Lu metro station)
Tel. 6431 7751
Place: Bistro Latitude, Shanghai
